The Adsafe Responsible Officer is designated as the local Church Pastor, unless the Church has sought approval from Adsafe to appoint an elder who has the appropriate skills to the role.

The Adsafe Responsible Officer is a senior leadership role whose job is to be aware of all Child and Vulnerable Adult Protection (CP) matters in the organisation and ensure that all appropriate responses have be taken and risk is being managed. Delegation of CP tasks is encouraged across the organisation with the Adsafe Responsible Officer taking the coordination role.

Download a job description for the Adsafe Responsible Officer here.

Download an operational checklist for the Adsafe Responsible Officer role here.

The Adsafe Child & Vulnerable Persons Protection Policy and the Adsafe Role Requirements Guideline are located on the Adsafe website at www.adsafe.org.au/safeguarding/policies Use the Adsafe Safeguarding Framework table on this page to locate the documents.

Adsafe Child Protection Policy ==CVPPP

Role Requirements Guidelines ==RRG

Form A is the document that the local church Board completes to indicate that it has adopted/approved the Adsafe Child & Vulnerable Persons Protection Policy and the Adsafe Role Requirements Guideline. The Form is also used to notify Adsafe of the name and contact details of the Adsafe Responsible Officer and the Adsafe Compliance Assistant.

Form A can be downloaded from the Adsafe website at: www.adsafe.org.au/safeguarding/policies.  It is located in the resources column adjacent to Role Requirements in the Safeguarding Framework table. Or found  .

Completed Forms should be returned to Adsafe at: training@adsafe.org.au

Each church should appoint an Adsafe Compliance Assistant (ACA) to assist you in your role. The ACA will monitor compliance of those who need to complete Adsafe requirements. The ACA will advise you of people who have not completed requirements so that appropriate action can be taken.

With the agreement of the ACA, you may wish to share administrative tasks with them such as preparing compliance reports for the Church Board and Business Meetings, and compiling lists of local Church governance and child-related roles for the Church Board and for Adsafe.

As Adsafe develops policy other roles will be created to assist you in your role of Adsafe Responsible Officer.

Your local Conference and Adsafe are available to assist you with information and advice.

The following groups of people need to complete their requirements:

• Any adult aged 18 and over working/volunteering in a child-related role.
• Church Board members or leadership group members.

There are three (3) requirements:

• Working With Children Check (or equivalent) – your state/territory/country requirement.
• Adsafe Safer Churches Awareness Training.
• a commitment to the Adsafe Code of Conduct.

Child-related roles includes any person:

• Making leadership decisions in an entity that offers child services.
• With unsupervised care of children.
• With unsupervised access to children while performing regular duties.
• With access to children’s information as a regular part of their duties.
• In a role designated as child related in the organisation’s Schedule B: Schedule of Child Related Roles (Role Requirement Guidelines: Appendix B).

The Board (or equivalent leadership body) has the responsibility for administering sound governance at the local church level. This governance includes being knowledgeable about, and giving advice on, the protection of children and vulnerable adults at risk.

The Adsafe Policy requires that persons on the church Board (or equivalent leadership body) should meet the Adsafe requirements. The Policy is based on Christ’s commission and our church’s commitment to protect children and people at risk.

Church leaders set the tone for the culture of the church. Prevention of harm to vulnerable groups is the key to creating cultural change.

Adsafe has designed the Schedule B to assist you to identify who in your Church needs to undertake Adsafe requirements according to what roles are held. The roles to be listed in Schedule B are found in Appendix B of the Role Requirements Guidelines.

You can use Schedule B1.1 to list the roles in your Church which are defined child-related roles according to Adsafe Policy. The role-holder’s name can then be listed adjacent to the position.

You can use Schedule B1.2 to list the additional roles that your Church Board has deemed to be roles assessed as child-related. The role-holder’s name can then be listed adjacent to the position.

Completed Schedule B documents should be submitted to the Church Board for approval. The approved documents should then be emailed to Adsafe at: training@adsafe.org.au

There are two template Schedule B documents available on the website.  One is a Word table document and the second an Excel spreadsheet template.  This are available for download at 

Word

Excel

The Awareness Training and Code of Conduct are available to complete on-line on the Adsafe e-learning portal at: https://elearning.adsafe.org.au/ If a person doesn’t already have an account, they should click on “not a member? Sign up” at the bottom of the log-in panel.

Please contact the Adsafe Safeguarding Team at: training@adsafe.org.au should you wish to organise Training for your church.

A person with an e-learning account can be allocated more than one ‘manager’. Therefore, you are welcome to be one of the ’managers’ listed on each of your Church’s account holders. This will give you a ‘Team View’. Contact Adsafe if you would like this to happen.

To see the compliance details of your Church’s account holders, you need to have a Team View (see the previous point about how to obtain one).

Log onto your e-learning account through the portal at: https://elearning.adsafe.org.au/

Scroll down to your Team View to view the names of the learners who are linked to you as ‘manager’. Adjacent to their name will be a red rectangle if they are non-compliant and a green rectangle if they are compliant. This compliance information is based on the job positions they have listed in their account profile.

1. Click on a name.
2. Click on the Go To Profile button at the bottom of the pop-out menu.
3. Click on their Goals Profile tab which is along the top of the page.
4. Any elements in progress (not completed) will be displayed.
5. Click on the Completed button.
6. Click on the right-facing arrow at right-hand edge of screen adjacent to the Safer Churches Awareness Training wording and date. This unpacks completions and relevant dates.
7. If the person has completed Training previously there will be a black rectangle between the green circle with a white tick in it and the words “Awareness Training”. Click on this black rectangle to unpack the details of the previous Training.
8. Adjacent to the date they completed their Training is a square containing a badge symbol. Click on that square to download/save/print a person’s Certificate.

Log into your e-learning account at: https://elearning.adsafe.org.au/ Click on Goal Centre (underneath the Adsafe logo at the top left-hand corner of your screen), then on the Completed button. Click on the right-facing arrow at the right-hand edge of the screen to unpack details of your completed Awareness Training. The date you completed it will be displayed.

Adsafe Policy indicates that people serving in child-related roles and in Board/leadership positions should complete their Adsafe requirements before taking up their role. The local Church should have continency plans to cover periods when personnel are stood down.

Adsafe suggests that child safety be a standing agenda item at each Board and Business Meeting.

There is no fixed format for a report. Think about what your Board and Church members would like to know and include that in your report. This could include a reminder about the elements of Adsafe compliance, current statistics on your Church’s compliance, and updates from Adsafe.

There is a practice update that discusses how to manage Nominating Committee screening available on the website here  and template screening form here

The following process should be followed:

1. Flag with the church that prospective appointees will be screened with Adsafe and give them an opportunity to withdraw the name before screening if desired.
2. Prepare a list of active members being considered for Church roles using the template screening form. Email this list to the Adsafe: Risk Management and Investigation team at sc@adsafe.org.au
3. The Adsafe RMI team will contact you on any names that represent a heightened risk and discuss this risk.

Privacy issues are best handled with transparency.  This can be done with a bulletin announcement or a church announcement from the front.  You may use words to the effect:

“The Nominating Committee process for the selection of people to serve our Church community for the new Church Year is about to begin. Part of our selection process is the screening of prospective appointees with Adsafe for the purposes of Child Protection and to identify any heightened child related risk. If you are a member and would not like your name to be screened please let me know before . Please see the Church Bulletin for a link to Adsafe’s Privacy Policy” 

For further information see Adsafe's Practice update available here.

Adsafe’s philosophy on creating a safe environment for all who attend including persons who represent heightened risk is to limit the number of people in the church community who are aware of this very sensitive information.

To this end the Chairman of the Nominating Committee (Nom Com) would have screened the names with Adsafe and presented the Nom Com with those who are eligible. Some discussion needs to occur with the Committee about how to handle Adsafe’s screening process.  To either (1) accept and not consider those who represent heightened risk for certain positions or (2) Have the Adsafe RMI team present to the committee what these heightened risks are.

The person should be stood down from their role and advice sought from Adsafe.

Adsafe is currently developing Risk Mitigation Guidelines which cover a wide variety of activities your Church may conduct. The final Guidelines will be soon be uploaded to the Policy section of the website.  If you would like to view a draft version please contact the safeguarding team at Adsafe.

Adsafe is currently in the process of developing guidelines related to the handling of complaints, disclosures and allegations of abuse and harm. Once completed, these guidelines will be placed into the Policies section of the Adsafe website.

In the meantime contact Adsafe for advice.

Adsafe has published practice updates about reporting and notifications for various jurisdictions on the Adsafe website at: www.adsafe.org.au/safeguarding/policies in the Safeguarding Framework table.

This includes information on:

1.     Reportable Conduct (RC)

2.     Mandatory Reporting

3.     Failure to Report and Failure to Protect (FTP&R)

There is also a Practice update on an organisation’s legal obligations as it related to Child Protection. This can be found here